Aerate before or after pitching yeast?

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RiversC174

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I know, a completely amateur question but I dont think I aerated my first batch well enough or properly. Firstly, do you aerate before or after pitching yeast? Second, I dont have any fancy gadgets to do it so do you guys recommend just popping my sirlonk on quick, picking up my carboy and spazing out for a minute or two? Or is there a more refined way of doing this?? :confused: Thanks.

Joe
 
Always after cooling and before pitching.


The most elegant way to aerate can be seen here:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/aeration.html


Others shake the carboy like you described, or pour the wort back and forth between sanitized pails a few times. Or pour the wort through a fine mesh strainer. Aerating is more important when doing a full boil. If you are doing a partial boil, the extra added water will have some oxygen in it....
 
Yes and yes. If you're big enough to shake the carboy, that works. I use a pump and a timer, so the wort is aerated for 15 minutes every hour for six hours or until I get a blowoff or go to bed, whichever happens first.
 
RiversC174 said:
Second, I dont have any fancy gadgets to do it so do you guys recommend just popping my sirlonk on quick, picking up my carboy and spazing out for a minute or two? Or is there a more refined way of doing this??

what could possibly be more refined than popping a sirlonk on quick and spazing out for a minute???:D
 
Keep in mind that if you do less than 5 gallon boils and top off with tap water, you're adding a good bit of O2 to your wort that way, so your aeration need is less critical.

You can also buy a little "splashing gadget" for a couple bucks that aerates the wort as it leaves the siphon tube and goes into the fermenter. The critical thing here would be that the wort be cooled to 80-90 or less before you do this, to avoid hot-side aeration.
 
Personally, I don't think it matters if you aerate before or after pitching, provided that you do the two things within minutes of each other.

I have done batches where I aerated (via shaking the carboy) and then pitched immediately, and I have done batches where I pitched the yeast and then immediately aerated (again via shaking).

The one thing I would avoid is pitching the yeast and then waiting a long time before aerating. But, if you wait only a few minutes to aerate, you should be OK.

-walker
 
Ivan Lendl said:
i pop my sirlonk on real slow...
that's probably not a bad idea... you could put an eye out or stain a carpet if you pop that sirlonk too quickly....
 
RiversC174 said:
I know, a completely amateur question but I dont think I aerated my first batch well enough or properly. Firstly, do you aerate before or after pitching yeast? Second, I dont have any fancy gadgets to do it so do you guys recommend just popping my sirlonk on quick, picking up my carboy and spazing out for a minute or two? Or is there a more refined way of doing this?? :confused: Thanks.

Joe

this is a really good question actually, aeration is a really important step that deserves the utmost attention. i do the spazola method, where i anchor the carboy on the top of my feet and shake it back and forth with enough momentum to mix the entire 5 gallons from top to bottom. i do this for maybe 10 seconds, then let it sit for a minute. i repeat every minute about 10 times, after the first few i open the stopper enough to let some air in then close it and shake again. when im done there is a head of foam that fills most of the dead space in the carboy, then i pitch the yeast and shake one more time before replacing the solid stopper with the airlock/drilled stopper....
 
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